Top 10 Celebrity Stalker Stories

Miley Cyrus recently got a restraining order against a fan who had been stalking her. Devon Meek told police that Cyrus “adores him” and that she has been communicating to him through her songs. This isn’t the first time Cyrus has had trouble with obsessive fans. Back in 2009, 53-year-old Mark McLeod was stalking Cyrus, saying she had been sending him messages through her show Hannah Montana. McLeod also was saying that he and Cyrus were engaged. Both crazed fans claimed Cyrus was communicating to them, so it seems as though Miley’s work truly is far-reaching.

Cyrus is not the only celebrity who has had to deal with stalker scares, but she certainly is one of the more recent cases. In past years, there have been break-ins, threatening messages, inappropriate love letters and even improper gifts that have called for legal action. Crazed fans, and sometimes crazed critics, have found ways to not only scare their victims, but end up in jail and sometimes even committed.

Let’s look at some of the scariest stories of stalkers and the things they have done to earn the their place in the list.

10. Alec Baldwin
Canadian actress Genevieve Sabourin was sentenced to 210 days for stalking and aggravated harassment. For several weeks, she sent Alec Baldwin unsettling notes declaring her love for him until she eventually showed up to a screening for Last Tango in Paris, which Baldwin was hosting and from where she had to be removed by security. She also showed up at two of Baldwin’s homes even when he wasn’t there.

In 2000, Dante Michael Soiu wanted to take “God’s scalpel” and “cut the sin” out of Paltrow. He was sending her several letters a day and boxes full of pornography and inappropriate gifts, one of which was a vibrator with a note that said, “Because I love you.” He even showed up unannounced to Paltrow’s parents’ home. At his trial, he was declared legally insane and was hospitalized in California.

Pradeep Manukonda was sending the Facebook CEO threatening handwritten letters. Manukonda tried to contact Zuckerberg’s sister and girlfriend and went as far as lurking outside Facebook headquarters and Zuckerberg’s home. Manukonda eventually said he was only trying to reach Zuckerberg to ask for advice, and that he didn’t mean to scare him.

Margaret Mary Ray stalked David Letterman and was in and out of jail for it. She drove his car, trespassed onto his property, and repeatedly tried to reach him on the phone and in person. She committed suicide in 1998.

Back in 1996, Robert Dewey Hoskins stalked and threatened to kill Madonna. Her security guard shot him after Hoskins jumped the fence onto the singer’s home. She testified in court against him and he was sentenced to ten years in jail.

3. Uma Thurman
From 2005 to 2008, Jack Jordan stalked Uma Thurman. He repeatedly sent her unsettling cards and letters and showed up at both her home and at the movie set where was filming at the time. Some of the messages she received were sent after he had been committed to a mental facility in Maryland.

Michael Douglas had a case of real-life fatal attraction when his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones was being threatened and stalked by Dawnette Knight, who claimed she was having an affair with him. One of Knight’s messages stated her intentions to slice Zeta-Jones and feed her to dogs. She was sentenced to three years in prison.

John Hinckley, Jr. was so obsessed with Jodie Foster, that he went as far as shooting President Ronald Reagan in a crazy attempt to gain her love. He even enrolled in Yale so he could stalk her. He eventually was tried for 13 offenses but was found not guilty due to insanity. He was confined to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in D.C., where he still is today.